Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Region IV-A CALABARZON OIC Regional Director Miguel C. Fernandez, Jr. recently disclosed that during the onslaught of typhoon “Ondoy”, which devastated and inundated most parts of Metro-Manila and the surrounding CALABARZON provinces of Rizal and Laguna, the storm’s unprecedented record heavy rainfall also took its toll on several mines, quarries and mineral processing plants in Rizal province. The rock aggregates quarries and crushing plants in the municipalities of San Mateo and Rodriguez (Montalban) bore the brunt of the typhoon’s fury and suffered heavy property damages and untold adverse environmental impacts onsite including the surrounding areas.

In San Mateo town, two rock crushing plant sites; namely: those belonging to RMR AGGREGATE Corp. (Formerly CONROCK) and MONTEROCK CORP. were totally inundated. The entire processing plant premises of both companies including field offices, crusher equipment, appurtenant structures such as siltation control facilities and motor pool yards with some parked mobile equipment were totally submerged under two stories-deep flood waters at the height of Typhoon Ondoy.  

Meanwhile, at the same time in Barangay San Isidro municipality of Rodriguez, the same scenario was experienced by the administrative field office and processing plant compound of Oxford Mines Inc. The adjoining Tanag River overflowed its banks and the resulting raging flood waters completely inundated the company’s plant site and even swept away some of its office buildings, warehouses and other ancillary structures. Raw material and finished product stockpiles were also washed out by the intense river current.

In the towns of Angono and Teresa where the Batong Angono Aggregates Corp. and the Teresa Marble Corp. plantsites are located respectively, moderate (knee-deep) flooding of company administrative offices and processing plant facilities also occurred.  

In other quarry and processing plant sites located at different parts of Rizal province, only minor damages to company property were reported. However, many companies were compelled to suspend operations because the access roads to their quarry and plantsites were rendered totally impassable because of the high level of floodwaters which were slow to recede or drain away as well as structural damage to the roads themselves due to scouring by very strong floodwater current brought about by heavy downpour magnified by excessive run-off from elevated areas. Landslides occurring along some roadside slopes thereby blocking access also exacerbated the already distressing or appalling road conditions. Among the affected companies with blocked or inaccessible roads were the following, all located in the San Isidro, Rodriguez area:

1.    BLUEROCK AGGREGATES CORPORATION
2.    STRONGROCK AGGREGATES CORPORATION
3.    JCR/SOLID INTEGRATED COMPANY TDR Crushing Plant
4.    BIYAYANG KALIKASAN QUARRY
5.    ROCKWEALTH QUARRY

Damage to properties as well as business losses due to suspension of commercial operations during an expected extended period of site rehabilitation are estimated to run into several hundreds of millions of pesos. Luckily, except for minor injuries, no mine/quarry/plant site casualties or loss of human life were reported.

Minimal to no damage were observed by MGB IV-A monitoring teams in mines, quarries and mineral processing plants of other CALABARZON provinces such as those located in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Quezon.